Chair's Message: Have you tried "Camp CHPPD"?

Every June when schools close here on the East Coast, the young and old at our home take a deep breath and brace ourselves for the summer camp months. They are fun, educational, and with potential to cause anxiety, as this phase requires constant adjustments. As the outgoing Section chair, I feel the same way about "Camp CHPPD". It has been fun and educational with moments of anxiety.

We sent out proposals to solicit photo journals. The five photojournalists will be presenting their work on Monday, Nov. 8, 12:30 – 2:00 p.m., Session #3210. Be sure to "watch your funds at work" in Denver.

We also solicited members to create a design on the theme "Health in All Policies". Tammy Pilisuk, the new incoming governing councilor, created the winning entry. The design was printed on t-shirts and tote-bags. We distributed 40 T-shirts and 40 tote-bags on the CHPPD Section’s 40^th anniversary at the 2009 Annual Meeting in Philadelphia. The t-shirts and tote bags were hot items at the CHPPD Section booth.

In 2009, we created the "CHPPD: Celebrating 40 years" Slide Show. Scroll down to the link in the "About" tab of the website.

For the first time, members donated $900 to the Section Enrichment funds in 2010. We learned that the Section should only accept check or credit card donations, and not cash, to allow our donors to get tax deductible benefits. Thank you to all of you who donated. We will invest these enrichment funds into innovative community health planning and policy development projects. Donations can be made to the CHPPD Section with the form, a portable document format (pdf), posted on the CHPPD section home page.

Chair-Elect Amy Carroll-Scott, PhD, has conducted the business meetings when section chairs were unable to attend the Annual Meeting in San Diego in 2008, and will do so again in Fall 2010. Amy – with Section leaders Paul Meissner, Russell McIntire, Ashley Wennerstrom, Shawn Kimmel, Winston Tseng, and many others - will be hard at work. I am unable to travel to Denver for the Annual Meeting. Thank you for filling in. 

I would also like to thank Section members who agreed to be nominated to section and APHA leadership roles.  Congratulations to members who were elected as new officers.

I would also like to thank all of you who have supported and trusted me to facilitate our work. For the Section, 2008 and 2009 were also the years of well-attended and thought-provoking webinars.

Finally, I thank my supervisors and colleagues at the Office of Public Health Practice, New York State Department of Health and my family because I borrowed time from them for our work.

In July 2010, the Section leaders have initiated an Improvement Initiative which will run through June 2011. We are adapting the Institute of Healthcare Improvement’s "Model for Improvement" Framework to three projects:

1. Enabling members to identify projects that they would like to work on within the section. Contacts: Amy Carroll-Scott, amy.carroll-scott@yale.edu and Winston Tseng, wtseng@pacbell.net.
2. Improving the process of CHPPD Section Invited Sessions. Contacts: Padma Arvind, padma.arvind@co.middlesex.nj.us and Tammy Pilisuk, Tammy.Pilisuk@cdph.ca.gov.
3. Transportation and Public Health. Contacts: Karyn Warsow, warsowreverence@yahoo.com, and Priti Irani, pri01@health.state.ny.us.

   The improvement projects aims, measures and changes interventions are being identified and posted on the section wiki at http://chppdweb.wetpaint.com. If you want to be involved, please e-mail the project contacts.